Instinct Editing

How are you supposed to tell when your writing is bad? or not quite right? or whether your story needs tweaking? Personally, I go off instinct. But it’s not that simple.

Bad words (not the fun kind) can be hard to spot. Simply put, you need to read lots of good writing to be able to discern bad writing. Lazy sentences, lazy metaphors, awkward adjectives, phrases that are just plain silly. If you suspect it might be silly, you should probably change it. When in doubt, edit the heck out of it.

As far as plot and story, that can be a much bigger problem, and you’ll probably be discouraged when it comes to editing. I just wrote a whole novel, now you mean I have to completely dissect it and move things around? Chuck things out? Ugh. But yes. I do mean that. It sucks. But if you know…